Paper Money

5

The Hon. Derek Hamilton woke up with a pain. He lay in bed with his eyes shut while he traced the discomfort to his abdomen, examined it, and graded it bad but not incapacitating. Then he recalled last night's dinner. Asparagus mousse was harmless; he had refused seafood pancakes; his steak had been well done; he had taken cheese in preference to apple tart. A light white wine, coffee with cream, brandyBrandy. Damn, he should stick to port.

He knew how the day would go. He would do without breakfast, and by midmorning the hunger would be as bad as the ulcer pain, so he would eat something. By lunchtime the hunger would be back and the ulcer would be worse. During the afternoon some trivial thing would irritate him beyond all reason, he would yell at his staff, and his stomach would ball into a knot of pain which made him incapable of thinking at all. He would go home and take too many painkillers. He would sleep, wake with a headache, eat dinner, take sleeping pills, and go to bed.

At least he could look forward to bedtime. He rolled over, yanked open the drawer of the bedside table, found a tablet, and put it in his mouth. Then he sat up and picked up his cup of tea. He sipped, swallowed, and said: "Good morning, dear."

"Morning." Ellen Hamilton sat on the edge of the twin bed, wearing a silk robe, perching her cup on one slender knee. She had brushed her hair already. Her nightwear was as elegant as the rest of her large wardrobe, despite the fact that only he ever saw it, and he was not interested. That did not matter, he surmised: it was not that she wanted men to desire her-only that she should be able to think of herself as desirable.

He finished his tea and swung his legs to the floor. His ulcer protested at the sudden movement, and he winced with pain.

Ellen said: "Again?"

He nodded. "Brandy last night. Ought to know better."

Her face was expressionless. "I suppose it has nothing to do with yesterday's half-year results."

He heaved himself to his feet and walked slowly across the expanse of oyster-colored carpet to the bathroom. The face he saw in the mirror was round and red, balding, with rolls of fat under the jaw. He examined his morning beard, pulling the loose skin this way and that to make the bristles stand up. He began to shave. He had done this every day for the last forty years, and still he found it tiresome.

Yes, the half-year results were bad. Hamilton Holdings was in trouble.

When he had inherited Hamilton Printing from his father it had been efficient, successful, and profitable. Jasper Hamilton had been a printer-fascinated by typefaces, keen on the new technology, loving the oily smell of the presses. His son was a businessman. He had taken the flow of profits from the works and diverted it into more businesses-wine importing, retailing, publishing, paper mills, commercial radio. This had achieved its primary purpose of turning income into wealth and thereby avoiding tax. Instead of Bibles and paperbacks and posters, he had concerned himself with liquidity and yields. He had bought up companies and started new enterprises, building an empire.

The continuing success of the original business disguised the flimsiness of the superstructure for a long time. But when the printing complex weakened, Hamilton discovered that most of his other businesses were marginal; that he had underestimated the capital investment needed to nurse them to maturity; and that some of them were very long-term indeed. He sold forty-nine percent of his equity in each of the companies, then transferred his stock to a holding company and sold forty-nine percent of that. He raised more money, and negotiated an overdraft running into seven figures. The borrowing kept the organization alive, but the interest-rising fast through the decade-ate up what little profit there was.

Meanwhile, Derek Hamilton cultivated an ulcer.

The rescue program had been inaugurated almost a year ago. Credit had been tightened in an attempt to reduce the overdraft; costs had been cut by every means possible from cancellation of advertising campaigns to utilization of print-roll off-cuts for stationery. Hamilton was running a tight ship now; but inflation and the economic slump ran faster. The six-month results had been expected to show the world that Hamilton Holdings had turned the corner. Instead they demonstrated further decline.

He patted his face dry with a warm towel, splashed on cologne, and returned to the bedroom. Ellen was dressed, sitting in front of the mirror, making up her face. She always managed to dress and undress while her husband was out of the bedroom: it occurred to him that he had not seen her naked for years. He wondered why. Had she run to seed, the fifty-five-year-old skin wrinkling and the once-firm flesh sagging? Would nakedness destroy the illusion of desirability? Perhaps, but he suspected something more complex. It was obscurely connected with the way his own body had aged, he thought, as he climbed into his cavernous underpants. She was always decently clad; therefore he never lusted after her; therefore she never had to reveal how undesirable she found him. Such a combination of deviousness and sensitivity would be characteristic.

She said: "What are you going to do?"

The question caught him off balance. He thought at first that she must know what he was thinking, and be referring to that; then he realized she was continuing the conversation about the business. He fastened his suspenders, wondering what to tell her. "I'm not sure," he said eventually.

She peered closely into the mirror, doing something to her eyelashes. "Sometimes I wonder what you want out of life."

He stared at her. Her upbringing had taught her to be indirect and never to ask personal questions, for seriousness and emotion spoiled parties and caused ladies to faint. It would have cost her considerable effort to inquire about the purpose of someone's existence.

He sat on the edge of his bed and spoke to her back. "I must cut out brandy, that's all."

"I'm sure you know it has nothing to do with what you eat and drink." She applied lipstick, contorting her mouth to spread it evenly. "It began nine years ago, and your father died ten years ago."

"I've got printing ink in my blood." The response came formally, like a catechism. The conversation would have seemed dislocated to an eavesdropper, but they knew its logic. There was a code: the death of his father meant his assumption of control of the business; his ulcer meant his business problems.

She said: "You haven't got ink in your veins. Your father had, but you can't stand the smell of the old works."

"I inherited a strong business, and I want to bequeath to my sons an even stronger one. Isn't that what people of our class are supposed to do with their lives?"

"Our sons aren't interested in what we leave them. Michael is building his own business from scratch, and all Andrew wants to do is vaccinate the whole of the African continent against chicken pox."

He could not tell how serious she was now. The things she was doing to her face made her expession unreadable. No doubt it was deliberate. Almost everything she did was deliberate.

He said: "I have a duty. I employ more than two thousand people, and many more jobs are directly dependent upon the health of my companies."

"I think you've done your duty. You kept the firm going during a time of crisis-not everyone managed that. You've sacrificed your health to it; and you've given it ten years of your life, and… God knows what else." Her voice dropped on the final phrase, as if at the last minute she regretted saying it.

"Should I give it my pride as well?" he said. He carried on dressing, tying a tight little knot in his necktie. "I've turned a jobbing printer's into one of the thousand biggest companies in the country. My business is worth five times what my father's was. I put it together, and I have to make it work."

"You have to do better than your father."

"Is that such a poor ambition?"

"Yes!" Her sudden vehemence was a shock. "You should want good health, and long life, and-and my happiness."

"If the company was prosperous, perhaps I could sell it. As things are, I wouldn't get its asset value." He looked at his watch. "I must go down."

He descended the broad staircase. A portrait of his father dominated the hall. People often thought it was Derek at fifty. In fact it was Jasper at sixty-five. The phone on the hall stand shrilled as he passed. He ignored it: he did not take calls in the morning.

He went into the small dining room-the large one was reserved for parties, which were rare these days. The circular table was laid with silver cutlery. An elderly woman in an apron brought in half a grapefruit in a bone china dish.

"Not today, Mrs. Tremlett," he told her. "Just a cup of tea, please." He picked up The Financial Times.

The woman hesitated, then put the dish down in Ellen's place. Hamilton glanced up. "Just take it away, will you?" he said irritably. "Serve Mrs. Hamilton's breakfast when Mrs. Hamilton comes down, and not before, please."

"Very good," Mrs. Tremlett murmured. She took the grapefruit away.

When Ellen came in she picked up the argument where they had left it. "I don't think it matters whether you get five million or five hundred thousand for the company. Either way we'd be better off than we are now. Since we don't live comfortably, I fail to see the point of being comfortably off."

He put down the paper and looked at her. She was wearing an original tailored suit in a cream-colored fabric, with a printed silk blouse and handmade shoes. He said: "You have a pleasant home, with a small staff. You've friends here, and a social life in Town when you care to take advantage of it. This morning you're wearing several hundred pounds' worth of clothes, and you'll probably go no farther than the village. Sometimes I wonder what you want out of life."

She blushed-a rare event. "I'll tell you," she began.

There was a knock at the door, and a good-looking man came in, wearing an overcoat and carrying a cap. "Good morning, sir, madam," he said. "If we're to catch the seven forty-five, sir…"

Hamilton said: "All right, Pritchard. Just wait in the hall."

"Very good, sir. May I ask if you'll be using the car today, madam?"

Hamilton looked at Ellen. She kept her eyes on her dish as she said: "I expect so, yes."

Pritchard nodded and went out.

Hamilton said: "You were about to tell me what you want out of life."

"I don't think it's a breakfast-table subject, especially when you're rushing to catch a train."

"Very well." He stood up. "Enjoy your drive. Don't go too fast."

"What?"

"Drive carefully."

"Oh. Oh, Pritchard drives me."

He bent to kiss her cheek, but she turned her face to him and kissed his lips. When he pulled away, her face was flushed. She held his arm and said: "I want you, Derek."

He stared at her.

"I want us to spend a long, contented retirement together," she went on, speaking hurriedly. "I want you to relax, and eat the right food, and grow healthy and slim again. I want the man who came courting in an open-top Riley, and the man who came back from the war with medals and married me, and the man who held my hand when I bore my children. I want to love you."

He stood nonplussed. She had never been like this with him, never. He felt hopelessly incapable of dealing with it. He did not know what to say, what to do, where to look. He said: "I… must catch the train."

She regained her composure quickly. "Yes. You must hurry."

He looked at her a moment longer, but she would not meet his eyes. He said: "Um… good-bye."

She nodded dumbly.

He went out. He put on his hat in the hall, then let Pritchard open the front door for him. The dark blue Mercedes stood on the gravel drive, gleaming in the sunshine. Pritchard must wash it every morning before I get up, Hamilton thought.

The conversation with Ellen had been most peculiar, he decided, as they drove to the railway station. Through the window he watched the play of sunlight on the already-browning leaves, and ran over the key scenes in his mind. I want to love you, she had said, with the emphasis on you. Talking of the things he had sacrificed for the business, she had said and God knows what else.

I want to love you, not someone else. Was that what she meant? Had he lost the fidelity of his wife, as well as his health? Perhaps she simply wanted him to think she might be having an affair. That was more like Ellen. She dealt in subtleties. Cries for help were not her style.

After the six-month results, he needed domestic problems like a creditors' meeting.

There was something else. She had blushed when Pritchard asked if she would be using the car; then, hastily, she had said Pritchard drives me.

Hamilton said: "Where do you take Mrs. Hamilton, Pritchard?"

"She drives herself, sir. I make myself useful around the house-there's always plenty-"

"Yes, all right," Hamilton interrupted. "This isn't a time-and-motion study. I was only curious."

"Sir."

His ulcer stabbed him. Tea, he thought: I should drink milk in the morning.